Making The World A More Dangerous Place

President Obama has again announced his plans to close the terrorist detainee center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Politico reported yesterday that the Pentagon planned on releasing its plan to close the facility and move the prisoners to the United States.

Yahoo News reported today on the President’s plan to close down Guantanamo. The article explained:

President Barack Obama presented a long-shot plan Tuesday to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention center, hoping to fulfill an elusive campaign promise before he leaves office next year.

Describing the jail as a stain on America’s reputation and a catalyst for jihadists, Obama said “I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president.”

“For many years, it’s been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security. It undermines it,” Obama said from the Roosevelt Room

…The Guantanamo Bay closure plan, which took months to produce, offers no specifics on where a US facility would be, but military officials have previously listed Fort Leavenworth, Kansas or the US Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina among the possible destinations for inmates.

Those locations, however, face objections from local politicians.

The US leader has long argued that many Guantanamo prisoners should be transferred overseas and some should be tried by military courts.

A small number — those deemed too dangerous to release but too difficult to prosecute — would be held in the United States.

So what is the problem with this? In the closing, some prisoners would be released to various countries.

In January 2015, Fox News reported the following:

SEPTEMBER 2014 REPORT OF THE OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

As of July 15, 2014, 620 detainees have been transferred out of the detention facility.

Of the total, 107, or 17.3 percent, have been “confirmed of re-engaging,” which is defined as being directly involved in terrorist or insurgent activities. Nearly half of those — 48 — are now dead or in custody.

Of the total, 77, or 12.4 percent, are “suspected of re-engaging.” This category comprises detainees for whom it’s plausible that they are directly involved in terrorist or insurgent activities, but it can’t be verified or is based only on information from a single source. Sixteen of these 77 are now dead or in custody

Many of the former detainees have attained ‘superstar’ status in the terrorist groups they now lead.

Closing Guantanamo is a really bad idea. Unfortunately, the prison could have been a valuable asset in ending the war on terror had it been properly used during the Obama Administration. The Obama Administration did not send anyone to Guantanamo, instead they used drones to simply kill terrorists. At least sending them to Guantanamo to be questioned might have given us some of the intelligence we needed to predict the rise of ISIS. There is also the problem of putting terrorists in prison on American soil. The lawyers will have a ball claiming civil rights that non-combatant terrorists are not entitled to (under the Geneva Convention or any other convention). There is also the risk of a nearby school, mall, airport (pick your target) being taken hostage so that the terrorists will be freed to commit more terrorism.

All in all, closing Guantanamo is a really bad idea. It will make America less secure–not more secure.